Molasses
by Demeter1
Summary: For Akito, the flow of time isn't quite a straight line. Nor is it always fluid. Gen, Akito-centric.


**Title: "Molasses"**

**Author: Demeter**

**  
Disclaimer:** Does not belong to me and probably never will. But one can fantasize.

**Series:** Fruits Basket

**Characters/Pairing:** Akito, various

**Genre:** Gen

**Warnings/Notes:** I'm experimenting. Set in n-space, which means it's set nowhere and nowhen.

* * *

i.

A splinter stubborn and stuck quick to your thumb, bees buzz soft and lazy in the garden, you turn your slight hips into the sun and out of the shade. You hiss, the rays burn your skin and you tuck yourself back into the shadows. She's not around, no need to think, to plot, to hate? It's over, isn't it? You're free.

Why the tears, you wonder?

* * *

ii.

Hatori presses his hands deep at into your yukata and you look up at the ceiling and wonder why there's a watermark that resembles a rotten orange. When did it happen? It might have been that rain three months ago, when the winds howled and you cowered like a little baby. But no, no, there are people to catch this, you reason, you think. No one would allow this if they knew. It's your imagination, it must be. There is no rotten orange water stain on the ceiling. There can't be, so there isn't. Your mind is playing tricks again.

You don't flinch when he hesitates over your ribs and you can feel him count their frail nature in his head, one by one by one into infinity. Yourself, you count to three and then jerk away with a flash, enough to catch a glimpse of cloaked surprise in his one good eye. You roll onto your side and say, _enough_

_but,_

_I say enough_

and Hatori takes his stethoscope and pills and shiny black bag and walks out the door with measured steps. He's awfully quiet. You wonder what he hears in your heart. Are the dragons beating? Is there a roar for escape and freedom? Does he hear an end and a beginning? Or do you think he still hears the sound of breaking porcelain?

* * *

iii.

The plate of food entices you to eat it, the smell is unbearably good and you can feel the mouths of the people around you salivate. You twirl a strand of dark hair idle and slow around your finger as you look at Ayame blather about what the meal was made of and how healthy it would make your dying body. Everyone waits for you to start first. It's tradition, it's a rule, it makes you think about Ren's rule about sweets and candies. No, her order.

You take the plate and food and toss it onto Ayame's outlandish and garish lap.

You take a certain amount of pleasure seeing the food seep through the expensive fabric. There is a long and unusual silence that follows Ayame's slow blotting at his clothing. You turn and you feel your ribs ache sharply against the hollowed out scoop in the middle of your abdomen and you think of chewing on healthy young flesh. Your mouth waters for small animals and dripping haunches of meat. Foolish, your stomach can't abide such.

Kureno takes the plate and everyone else moves away. You should smile, but you don't. You're sorry, you really did want to eat that food, you want to apologize to Ayame, but you don't apologize, that's not something you do. You should press a hand into his shoulder, give him some hope for the future. Isn't this your duty out of love? (do you not love the Snake as much as the Rat?)

But you don't.

* * *

iv.

You try not to shiver, but you do because it's cold and you can see ice crystals form in the corners of the room. The kotatsu heats up centimeter by centimeter. But there's not much point when there's no one to heat it up for besides one cold body who can't care much. You feel the sun go down and you hear the hesitant rustling outside the doors; they slide open and you see yet more family members who have come begging for handouts.

_last year's stipends were appreciated but hardly adequate in light of_

_Haru loves Master so and he is always talking about Master and_

_cost of living increases, you know, and the economy being the way it is so that even_

_Yuki was top of his class again, sir, and I was thinking of adding an addition to the sun room for him, seeing as he concentrates_

You listen and you want change, but it's still the same.

* * *

v.

The light shines gently through rice paper windows. You look at the scattered piles of gifts and sacrificial offerings, mutely wrapped and what little color exist are swallowed by the fading sunset. Your birthday is the same as it was the year before and the year before that and the year before that and it will ever be the same.

Kureno takes the gifts quietly and deposits them into the fire for you. Is it sentimentality that prevents you from burning the Juunishi gifts? Your eyes burn along with the crackling and you can see paper turn to gray ash. Can you favor one above the other?

* * *

vi.

There are butterflies in your heart; it palpitates, it jumps, there are counterbeans falling backward. There are bitter grapeseeds in your mouth, a bag of gravel for your youth, you cry because it hurts like a _bitch_ and you want something other than white, white, white, everything is as white as gray-colored snow and you retch a little. Your throat is sour like unripe strawberries and you wipe away the little bit of blood that stains your teeth cherry blossom pink.

* * *

vii.

All you need is a word. One kind word, one soft murmur, and you'll have Kisa putty in your hands. She'll forget all about the terror, she'll forgive you straight away. She'll even convince Hiro that it was all a horrible nightmare. Maybe she'll even say that its her fault; all it will take is a word, a gentle touch.

This is your power. This is your ability, you can make it all go away.

You smile and stab the knife deeper into her heart when you take away her mother's privileges. She will learn, you think. She will know that there is no such thing as happiness in this cruel, cruel world.

You tell yourself that this is because you hate her, but you know that it's probably a lie.

* * *

viii.

Dead butterfly wings dot your windowsill. Someone comes in and gives it a silent sweep day by day, and you think about leaving something bigger. You take several flies and pull their wings off. They stumble around in terror and confusion before succumbing to starvation. You press their bodies into a mass. A congealed mass. It's almost pretty.

You look at your beautiful birds. And wonder.

What would they look like, dead? Dead like doornails. But doornails can't die, so perhaps they'll look like what they are. Dead birds. You snarl, softly.

* * *

ix.

Skin against skin.

Flesh against bone.

There's that small moment of connect and disconnect. You savor it. You wonder why you didn't do it sooner. You look into dark eyes and dark eyes look into you. They're filled with beauty and trust and love. It makes you think about brightly colored balls, a bouquet of unborn camellias and you wonder, you know. This is someone who is in love and who will do anything for that love.

So you push Rin out the window.

She flies, she soars like your forgotten birds and you look at her spread wings, the flying feathers of her hair, the scissors in her eyes.

Butterflies.

* * *

x.

The heartbeat is steady and soothing beneath your ear. You try to burrow closer and the arms tighten around your shoulder. Three beats and four and twenty. You feel the world drift down and away and the lines blur. You can hardly keep your eyes open and the ache is fading away.

You want to cry, you want to press your eyes into his shoulder and cry like there wasn't a hollowed scoop or greedy family members or dish after dish of colored pills and you feel this is a weakness. The heartbeat doesn't change and you curl hands around fistfuls of soft gray cloth; perhaps you're weak. Perhaps you're as weak as that filthy bitch said you were because you can't let go, you can't forgive, you can't be the light they need and sometimes it makes your eyes dim and your heart cool as they draw more energy than they should and...

Does it matter? You feel every bone in your body.

It won't be long.

**- fin -**


End file.
